1. Lambani embroidery Niharika Elety’s Bengaluru-based Tega Collective works with Adivasi communities in southern India to propagate this embroidery form through their clothes.

What is unique: Fourteen main stitches come together to create patterns inspired by geometric shapes, plants and nature. What stands out about these fabrics is their vibrant colours.

2. Patteda Anchu Hemalatha Jain started the Punarjeevana Trust to revive the ancient weaves of Karnataka. These include Patteda Anchu and Gomi Teni, which date almost two centuries back.

What is unique: The colours used are strictly mustard, maroon, pink and green. Black is avoided. The spin is based on a two-pallu concept, wherein there is no right or wrong side.

3. Kuthampully Kerala-born fashion designer Jebin Johny launched JEBSISPAR, a sustainable luxury clothing brand that works with Kuthampully weavers of the Devanga community.

What is unique: The fabric is made out of pure cotton and silk, and the borders are decked in figures of deities, such as Kathakali, Lord Krishna, and so on.

4. Kasuti embroidery Entrepreneur Arati Hiremath’s venture Artikrafts keeps the 15th-century embroidery form alive by partnering with women artisans in Dharwad, Karnataka.

What is unique: An artisan begins kasuti embroidery on a blank cloth, instead of on pencil tracings. Once complete, the design looks the same on both the right and wrong sides.

5. Ashavali brocade Paresh Patel of Gujarat is a third-generation weaver whose family has been carrying forward the ‘Ashavali brocade’ technique through their brand ‘Royal Brocades’ for 70 years.

What is unique: The brocade is done using the jacquard mechanism where a repeatable design is drawn onto plain paper and then replicated onto a larger paper.

Two kinds of threads are then used for embroidery, warp threads and weft ones. The holes on the card paper represent warp up, while the blanks represent warp down.

6. Petit Point embroidery Anshul Gupta started Prastuti Designs which works with over 1,200 women in West Bengal to produce designs using this embroidery technique.

What is unique: Famous as the embroidery of France, this technique came to India in the 18th century. It employs stitches that are so small that nearly 1,000 stitches are stitched in one square-inch area. It takes nearly 1,500 to 5,000 hours to make a sari.

7. Crewel embroidery Zamruda Bano from Kashmir started learning this embroidery form during the pandemic, eventually going on to establish 100 such centres employing more than 1,000 women.

What is unique: Rows of chain stitches are done with a hook rotating from the centre to create an embossed effect. The thread is wound into a knot before beginning to embroider.

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